One of the fascinating things about the Internet is the ability to reach a mass individual audience any number of times. Of course, they can reply any number of times as well. With the use of forums, for example, you get something akin to a Socratic dialogue minus the visual aspect of speech (facial expressions, eye contact, etc.).
The ideas shine through brightly and quickly. Stupidity, silliness, and aggression can be spotted instantly. The real juice, though, remains that co-mingling of ideas and the resulting offspring. At this very second, ideas in philosophy, art, science, and many other subjects are being born at a rate never before imagined. Also, somewhere someone is asking someone else what they want on their pizza. The profound and the mundane on a scale never before achieved.
Lest this all sound wonderful beyond compare, think of how this all could have been used a few decades ago. If the heinous Nazi regime had had the Internet at their disposal, the world we know now might not exist. Obviously, their mastery of propaganda would have allowed them to develop a powerful new weapon of persuasion and control. However, I'm thinking more in the realm of ideas. If the Nazis had been able to hook up their scientists with captured Danish physicist Neils Bohr, who the Allies felt had the ability to help make an atom bomb, then the monstrous Nazis might have beaten the Allies to the nuclear punch. With V-2 rockets to carry the payloads, they would have won WWII. All because certain people were able to exchange ideas at a certain place and time. A "what if" to ponder.
On the positive side of the ledger, at this time our new President is asking for the help of citizens in surmounting the problems of the day. Is this a PR stunt? Of course, but I think we should start taking the president at his word and holding him to it. If he wants ideas, give them to him.
And don't be dissuaded that you don't have a fabulous new idea for the newbie president. Harry Truman said, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." More on point, paraphrasing Edmund Burke, there are no new ideas in liberty. Many ideas get passed around for years until people finally see the path of wisdom. Think voting rights for all. Passed in 1865. Fully executed --1965.
With a completely corrupt federal legislative branch, my idea is a federal amendment for congressional term limits. Is this old hat? Sure, but it's never been more needed than with the rampant corruption we face today. When the former Governor of Illinois on his corruption tapes talks about taking the seat himself, he's acknowledging that this seat is a cash cow. If he could not get something for it, then he'll milk it himself for all it's worth. We must protect the seats in Congress from such lecherous twisters. We try to forestall corruption for the Presidency, the federal executive with term limits. Why not the federal legislature?
Article comments
1 - Jonathan Scanlan
Big problem with term limits is that being aware of your time limit, you're more likely to be persuaded by lobby groups who will give you a job after you finish your time in government.
If you really want to cut corruption and stagnation, then what you need is a way for the public to be more interactive with government.
After all, what allows this corruption is the isolation of government from the public.
Just imagine what'll happen if congress decide to oppose some of Obama's more radical reforms... the fact that the Big O has thousands of supporters that he can email and thus flood the opposition switchboards must be of grave concern to these people.
2 - Dr Dreadful
Unfortunately, the way the US Constitution requires amendments to be enacted means that any amendment on term limits would have to be passed by Congress itself.
There's a reason the House and Senate are among the few remaining elected political bodies or offices without term limits. Would you vote yourself out of a job?
I have to say, though, that the second paragraph of this article is one of the most splendid pieces of prose I've read in a while. Very funny!
3 - Mr Dock Ellis
Sure, you need a more responsive government, but I was looking for an actual change of people. Only in the last 40 or 50 years have we seen the rise of career politicians. Before WWII, Congress was really a part time job, so people didn't serve as long. You couldn't making a living at it long term-not enough cash. Now the money is there, so turnover should be greater.
Term Limits aren't a panacea, but they get new leaders in DC so people don't stay in the bubble too long and forget why they came in the first place. Only way to change the culture is change the people. Peaceful transfer of power works better on a schedule, not when somebody dies as with a monarchy or the current Congressional system. Money will always be there and a temptation, but leaders must change or we risk failure like Rome or diminuation like Britain.
4 - Dr Dreadful
I don't know, Mr Ellis. I think both systems are open to abuse. Making an elected office part-time doesn't necessarily get you a better politician.
I grew up in a conservative (big and small C) part of suburban London. Our long-serving (if 'serving' is the right word) MP was just such a part-timer. His primary and in most instances only concern was his business interests, of which there were apparently many. In consequence, he was rarely seen either in the Commons or in his constituency and put minimal effort into the duties of his elected office because he knew that the locals would elect a gerbil so long as it wore a blue rosette. He always voted with his party: never dissented, as far as I can recall, on a single issue or a single vote. I seriously doubt he ever read any of the bills or motions he voted on, but simply voted the way the party whips told him to.
The local party finally got rid of him about four elections ago and brought in a new guy who's just as conservative. Although he toes the party line almost as much, he's a professional politician and does seem to actually care about representing his constituents, rather than just phoning it in.
Are things much different in the US? Possibly, but you did invoke the fall of Britain as a warning against complacency. I'm just saying that amateur politicians aren't necessarily the answer.
5 - STM
The Conservatives are headed for almost certain victory at the next general election, aren't they Doc, given Gordon Brown's sinking (or sunk) popularity, courtesy of the Blair legacy?
Brown doesn't have a lot of charism, either, but I'll bet London to a brick his Prime Ministership has helped stop the rise of the Scottish nationalists - the turkeys who seemed intent on voting for Christmas (or should that be Thanksgiving, up your way on the other side of the big pond?)
For what it's worth, despite his Iraq mistake, I actually thought Blair was a great PM - especially for moving the Labour Party further away from its bolshy trade-union roots to sensible centre-left, post-industrial social democracy.
In essence, the policies of the two major parties are now not that different.
The Conservatives have some interesting characters running around at the moment. I watched a great show on cable here the other night called Who Do You Think You Are?
Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, was able to research his and through a scandal going back to 18th century Germany, discovered he was a descendent of King George II.
Supermodel Jodie Kidd's was the best of the new series (which has included Jerry Springer) so far though: Her grandfather was Canadian newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook, Churchill's WWII armaments minister.
In tracing the history on both sides of her family, she discovered on the other side her great-great grandfather was a Baronet ship-building industrialist from Newcastle who made his fortune through WWI but was convicted for food hoarding near the end of the war.
On the Beaverbrook side, she had a murderer who killed one of his brothers and burned down the farm in St. John, Canada, but continued to trace that back to the first settlers in Massachusetts.
She then traced those first settlers back to a protestant puritan church in a village in Yorkshire - full circle. Good stuff.
She seemed quite relieved that she could say she wasn't an American, although when she went to Massachusetts she seemed fascinated as she went to various town halls looking for details and researching the American connection.
I have to get back to the Old Dart one of these days and do the same thing.
God only knows what we'll find, though.
6 - Brunelleschi
I'm optimistic about the value of the internet to reform government for the better, but I don't see how the internet will cause a reform like term limits.
Since the internet is about information, good and bad, the reform will come based on information.
Already people are losing interest in the way big networks used to spoon-feed the public selected news and ideas. Dan Rather's fall comes to mind. I swtiched off network news long ago so I don't miss that kind of nonsense.
Fox and CNN are strong, but just feed their believers. Believers of one keep accusing the other of bias, and its tiresome.
Sites like this one won't topple the networks and their built-in, sponsor-paid bias tomorrow, but one can be optimistic.
Read the variety of comments and thought here, then compare it to the bland variety you get from Fox/CNN. People don't always agree, but they think and write, and explore things better than networks.
I don't think we can or need to predict what mechanism of change will emerge next. I'm just enjoying the ride. :)
7 - Mr Dock Ellis
I am only informed on (old) British politics through Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly", which illustates how the the King and his advisors from the nobility managed to lose the 13 colonies. Interestingly, voices from the commons provided a sensible path that was ignored. Part of her point and mine was that the flacid, self-centered, ignorant nature of these men arose from the fact that they never truly had to answer to anyone. They had no motivation for good governance because there was little threat to their power. With term limits, the threat to power is time. If it works to prevent long term corruption for the US President, and I think most people agree that it does, why not for Congress?
Last thing, current congress people would be grandfathered in, meaning Ted Kennedy and his ilk would be exempt from this law. As sad and bad as this is, it is the only way they would vote for it i.e. if it applied to someone else.
Sometimes, democracy is appallingly turgid and then I think of what your Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others" and I feel better.
8 - Dr Dreadful
With term limits, the threat to power is time. If it works to prevent long term corruption for the US President, and I think most people agree that it does, why not for Congress?
Does it prevent presidential corruption, though? You've only ever had one president who's served more than two terms. Not much evidence there either way.
There's something to be said for unlimited congressional service in that it provides a degree of continuity. Politicians who can't or won't look beyond the next election in two or four years can be damagingly short-sighted.
It's a topic I'm ambivalent about. There is something to be said for keeping a short leash on the buggers, but does lack of job security really lead to better performance?
9 - Dr Dreadful
STM: The Conservatives are headed for almost certain victory at the next general election, aren't they Doc, given Gordon Brown's sinking (or sunk) popularity, courtesy of the Blair legacy?
It's certainly looking that way, Stan, although you never know with British politics. Everyone thought John Major was going to sink without trace in 1992 (even though he was up against Neil Pillock), but he somehow managed to pull off a victory.
Mayor Boris is an interesting character - still seems a bit heavy on the clowning and light on the substance though.
I really like David Davies and was sorry he lost the leadership election to Cameron. He's probably not enough to persuade me to vote Tory again but I'd be comfortable with the country under his charge. Maybe if Cameron manages to lose the election he'll get another go.
10 - STM
Mr Ellis writes: "Part of her point and mine was that the flacid, self-centered, ignorant nature of these men arose from the fact that they never truly had to answer to anyone."
Bing. But actually, they did have to answer. Essentially, they had found loopholes in the law and were breaking it. The century before, the civil war in England that ended in the execution of a king who believed in absolute power and refused to hand it over to the people, and following the Restoration (of Charles II) and the Glorious Revolution in the 1680s that power was supposed to be removed forever.
Mad King George's problem was that he used croneyism and patronage to set up his own clique in Parliament (a bit like Washington today with its whispering in the right ears and its lobby groups), which furthered the interests of the royals, nobles and those in favour in the court over those of other Britons. Some of those in George's clique weren't nobles, either - many were MPs with new wealth representing so-called "rotten boroughs", which might have had only a few constituents.
Britain was ostensibly a democracy at the time, and would have been in practice were it not for the meddling of the king and his croneys and the corruption centring on the boroughs.
However, the good thing about a robust democracy like Britain's, which in its own way was as radical as America's at the time when seen in context, is that it learns from its mistakes, no matter how long and tedious the process may be, and it went on to institute more reforms on the executive power of constitutional monarchy, weighed against the power of parliament, and brought an end to corrupt electoral practises.
Whenever people raise this question in regard to the health of Britain's democracy at the time, it's worth noting that while George's meddling lost Britain the American colonies (in retrospect a good thing, even for Britain), the rest of Britain - still legally a constitutional representative democracy driven by the will of the people - was moving to a point where it was able to implement the Abolition of The Slave Trade Act by 1808 (fairly radical stuff at the time compared not just to the rest of Europe but to the world) and a ban on any slavery in the British isles themselves following a judgment of the Court of King's Bench in London a few years before the American War of Independence.
There are parallels. I see the America of today in a similar light - struggling to find the good under the surface and to do away with the bad practises and corruption (both overt and relating to process) that have marred US politics for far too long and which have turned it in recent decades into a modern, faux-democracy run by lobby groups, big money interests and power brokers, much like Britain's during the time of King George.
We've all gone full circle. But that's the nature of free societies, and the true beauty of rule of law.
11 - Mr Dock Ellis
"it learns from its mistakes,"
I wish I could agree with you, but I can't say that Britain or America fully does learn. Your Civil War was fought over the power of the King and yet King George was essentially engaging in the same conduct. The U.S. more recently fought the Gulf war all over again to take out a dictator we had already defeated once. These are expensive lessons relearned. People die. Money is wasted. Time is lost.
We must be flexible enough to change the structure when it needs it. If a democracy cannot effect structural change, it's doomed. In this day and age you can't wait for disaster to strike.
Right now, the fourth in line for the US Presidency is aged and infirm Robert Byrd. A few years ago it was Strum Thurmond, who was pushing 100, deaf and confined to wheelchair. Is this the sign of a vigorous healthy republic?
We like to focus on Rome as a way a republic can die, but the more relevant example for the US and Britain is the Venitian Republic. It had a long slow death spiral of corruption and incompetence. In it's day, it was as powerful as the US or the British Empire, but it rotted from the inside out.
12 - Joe R. San Jose
To create jobs, since most of the big companies received goverment money and tax breaks why wouldn't the government require them to sponsor, menthor or incubate small businesses to create more jobs. Tax breaks in exchange for job creation through small businesses. The big organization have all the talented human resources.